Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have used many bread makers from different manufacturers over the years, with the most significant improvement's being the addition of special cycles for lower gluten breads. As I usually make rye, whole wheat, and pumpernickel loaves, this has resulted in much more predictable and higher quality results. My penultimate machine was a Williams-Sonoma branded model, made by Salton(Breadman), and until its motor died after two years service, it never produced anything even reminiscent of a dud! I figured I had gotten my money's worth, but I did contact the retailer from whom I had bought the product. Williams-Sonoma now only carries the Cuisinart which they cheerfully exchanged for free. I accepted it with trepidation, having read the many consistently negative reviews posted on this forum with reference to the Cuisinart. Although the Cuisinart has essentially the same size/configuration of the pan and paddle, and relatively similar cycle times and sequences as the WS, the loaves came out consistently somewhat flattened and suboptimally risen, although the texture wasn't bad. Although I did not experience the "burning" that has been commented upon in multiple reviews, I did find that the crust was somewhat thicker and brittle in consistency. It was sort of a cross between a Dutch crunch crust and shoe leather! I think this must relate to the temperature at which the unit operates, in association with the unit's convection effect which increases the effective baking temperature at any given setting, since the reflectivity of the pan is identical with the WS. My impression is that the thermostat is set too high in these machines, and, unfortunately is not adjustable in the standard baking cycles. With respect to the rising problem, I noticed that in addition to the loaves' not rising as high as desired in the final phase, that there was some disturbing contraction of the loaves when the baking heat was applied; exactly the opposite of the "oven spring" that is anticipated in ordinary baking. This suggested to me that the gluten was not sufficiently developed in the kneading process. I did not find that changing the crust control through the range of light through dark made any significant difference in terms of the negatives of this machine's output. Please note that the comparison of the two machines was made with identical recipes and ingredients, with multiple trials. I returned the Cuisinart to Williams-Sonoma, and bought another Breadman 2500BC from Amazon, which, to my delight, has allowed me to pick up where I left off, now turning out beautiful rye loaves. The Cuisinart does not allow custom programming in the way the WS/Breadman does, so that there is no convenient way to build compensatory rise time into an already longer cycle than the Breadman(which, incidentally, has a shorter first rise). In summary, I think my experience with the Cuisinart breadmaker is that those who ignore history are destined to repeat it! Please pass this one up in favor of better alternatives.